The Polish History Museum is a state-funded cultural institution that aims to make Polish history more accessible. The museum will open on 11 November 2018 – the centennial anniversary of Poland’s independence – but it does not have a building to house it yet.

Dorota Szkodzińska, the museum’s Head of Publishing and Digital Resources, acknowledges that growing a brand without a building is a challenge. So the opportunity to collaborate with The Google Cultural Institute was a chance for the museum to exhibit online on a global scale.

Google proved to be an excellent partner, which helped to present high-resolution archive material, in a way that worked for the curators, those that own the material, and the audience. Later, as the collaboration with Google continued, the museum took part in a pilot project and developed their first mobile application using the technology provided by the GCI and the stories on the platform. The app has helped reach more than a million users.

Dorota Szkodzińska considers this to be a fantastic result: “We’ve reached people who had no special interest in Polish history, but became interested because of the way it is presented on the Google Cultural Institute platform.”

The partnership with Google has increased the brand awareness of the museum and improved its employees’ digital skills, which in turn boosted the museum’s prestige. The Polish History Museum’s exhibitions have even become a reference point for the Polish National Museum.

The recent exhibition at the Google Cultural Institue is dedicated to the general Władysław Anders.